When a scale becomes your idol

Pam Lundell

Another Miss USA has been crowned. YAY! I don’t know who won but I did hear about a little controversy at the pageant. Apparently Miss Indiana, who made it into the top twenty, was singled out as being NORMAL sized. One tweet called her a “thicker” contestant and then I read the small print she was considered normal at a size 4 and she’s 5’8 inches tall! She is beautiful and that may be “normal” for her. I’m about that tall and there are no size 4’s in my closet, more like 10’s and a I think a few mislabeled 8’s and I learned that’s OK.

A few months ago I gave up my scale after I realized I got on that thing early each morning and let that number dictate what my day would be like.

The number was more than a number. The number on the scale was my mood for the day, a measurement of my worthiness, beauty, and lovability. If the number was up I was immediately depressed, even if it was one or two pounds. If it was down, I was ecstatic….for the day.
One day I realized I was giving this inanimate piece of glass and metal more influence in my life than my Heavenly Father — and that it indeed had become an idol. Giving up the daily weigh-in was like any addict giving up anything but when I let go and trusted God, my outlook changed for the better. It was beyond freeing.

Blogger Allison Loftus put it perfectly as she wrote about dealing with the same idol; “I am getting myself ready to give-up finding my self worth in the mirror or on the scale. With each step of walking away from worthiness constructed from the size of my thighs, I walk towards my Father who not only accepts me just as I am. He loves me unconditionally. He created me in His image.”